Turnbull’s uncanny ability to get it 100% wrong

The issue (Climategate) is proving thorny enough to have split the opposition Liberal party, some of whose senators have rebelled against leader Malcolm Turnbull’s pledge to support the measure; and the government is planning to have another go at passing the bill on Monday.

It could even lead to a general election, with Mr Turnbull warning that the party risks annihilation if the rebels hold sway:

“We would be wiped out… the vast majority of Australians want to see action on climate change.”

The Coalition chucked the bill, and chucked the leader, and instead of oblivion, went on to poll 55-60%.

The Labor Party struggled, fought, wheeled and dealed, flat out lied, and got that climate change legislation through, and face… whats the word? Annihilation.

Note to ALP: The other party got itself out of the Carbon Tax mess. You can too. (But not with Rudd-Gillard).

BACKGROUNDER:

In November 2009 Malcolm Turnbull led the Liberal Party (the conservatives) in Australia but he wanted to pass the Emissions Trading Scheme so badly his leadership died on the sword in the week before Copenhagen started. The Coalition means the Liberals and National Party together.

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Rating: 9.1/10 (79 votes cast)

Malcolm Turnbull Flashback 2009: Conservatives will be wiped out if skeptics win, 9.1 out of 10 based on 79 ratings

Will push forward as fast as possible to an emissions trading scheme (which leaves open the possibility of shortening the two-year period for carbon tax, set at a too-high rate. Indeed, Rudd says he’ll look at the implementation of the tax after just six months.)

He says Julia Gillard specifically argued in Cabinet that Labor should delay a price on carbon until there was bipartisan support. Wong and Swan told him to scrap the emissions trading scheme. Whack”

Damn. I was hoping that even though I’m not a great fan of KR, that if he became PM again, some of the idiotic policies in place under the ginger snake would go, the carbon tax being one of them.

It would be nice if we had a journalist who had enough gumption to ask KR directly, “Which countries are we going to trade with under an ETS? Name 10 of a decent size.”

KEVIN Rudd has flagged a review of the carbon tax by the end of the year that would be likely to lower its price and reduce its impact on business, in a pitch to MPs in marginal seats besieged by the political fallout from the levy.

Yes, for the usual reason. The people who create original wealth usually know how to spend it more wisely than do those who take it from them in taxes.
There seems to be a simple cartoon picture of very wealthy people swimming in the dimes like Scrooge McDuck in old Disney stuff. That’s wrong. One should not forget that this wealth gets back into circulation, usually in a more directed manner and with much lower transaction costs than if it passed through those sticky bureaucratic fingers.
Blind Freddie can see that a carbon tax as proposed will take we citizens a fair way back to the Stone Age.

Any tax cuts will be reduced by what it costs to employ all those the extra bureaucrats who decide who to compensate plus the money being pledged to the UN. Classic socialist wealth redistribution in action.

Jo, thanks, a timely reminder to those who appear to have forgotten. Mr Abbott might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but an ex merchant banker / pro AGW Turnbull lead opposition would leave us with no hope of winning the war against alarmist science and related destructive economic policy and wasteful bureaucracy in Australia. A Turnbull lead opposition would have little motivation to scrap the wretched carbon tax, implement enquires into the behaviour of the BOM, disband pointless Climate Change bureaucracies and so forth.

Likewise as you have pointed out Gillard and Rudd are a poor choice although I note Rudd has just announced he will conduct an enquiry into the Carbon Tax effect on ‘working families’ no doubt to shore up his credentials for his leadership bid. However based on his track record it will make no difference in the long term but to delay the inevitable under a Labor/Greens government.

Real things with real value are the best hedge against the inflationists of the world, those useless leaders who would rather destroy a currency than try and implement policies which lead to prosperity.

The chance of global warming harming beachfront property in the next 100 years are 00.00001%.

The chance of your currency of choice being harmed by idiot leaders and central bankers is 99.999%

So get some prime real estate in your portfolio, and maybe some precious metals in the basement. You can bet on no surer thing than your local currency being made worthless over your lifetime.

Our house is at a beach in Newcastle not far from Greg Combet’s apartment. Our house is 96 years old, we have owned it for 36 years, our direct and extended families have lived at this beachside area since the 1860s.

Therefore, we understand the ocean and its patterns,we have direct daily observation of sea levels and tides, and we can assure Mr Combet and all other climate-change hysterics that the sea level ain’t rising. We’re at sea level in part of an old river delta, and we can’t get a spearpoint down to access groundwater 500m from the ocean.

It really pees me off that climate change hysterics don’t ask people who live in coastal or riverland or agricultural locations, or mining locations, about their long-term observations. Instead, they make decisions from the Canberra Cafe about the livelihoods of real people who know and understand far more about this country and its environment than one-term wonders.

Jo
Turnbull is pushing it uphill more now than he was then. He and his mate Krudd have a massive swing in public perception to contend with. The independent gives Richard Lindzen a fair coverage.

“Claims that the earth has been warming, that there is a Greenhouse Effect, and that man’s activity have contributed to warming are trivially true but essentially meaningless……How to explain the procession of eminent opinion leaders – some even in our own Royal Society – who advance the tenets of catastrophic global warming? “It is science in the service of politics,” he said.

If Lindzen is right, we will never be able to calculate the trillions that have been spent on the advice of “scientists in the service of politics”.

Peter Lang estimates the costs to be: $568 billion capital cost, $336/MWh cost of electricity and $290/tonne CO2 abatement cost. That is, the wholesale cost of electricity for the simulated system would be SEVEN times more than now, with an abatement cost that is THIRTEEN times the starting price of the Australian carbon tax and THIRTY times the European carbon price at the time of writing (12/2/2012.) And that does not include costs for the existing electricity network. Peter also says the electricity supply as projected in the 100% Renewable Electricity paper would be unreliable.

People are listening and It’s little wonder that the reinvention of Rudd campaign can’t get traction. A turn back to Turnbull on the conservative side has equally poor prospects

So much of what happens in politics is determined not by relevant facts but by what politicians perceive the voting public can be led to accept.

One of the great mis-perceptions in this category was made by those who wanted a Republic for our country (or themselves) with one of the foremost leaders of the push being Malcolm Turnbull MFGS.

Whether a Republic would be good for us is a matter for a lot of thought but the Australian Voters simply took a short cut to avoid all of the hard analysis needed and made their decision.

They assessed that the Republicans pushing hard were the ones most likely to gain from any change and that all voters were going to get was more of the same: incoherent government and self interested politicians displaying little regard for the plight of the tax payer.

What Malcolm then failed to take on board were some facts:

1. The Australian voter is taxed.

2. Voters work very hard to earn money to pay tax.

3. They resent being taxed to support disinterested and corrupt government.
(Corrupt: read: dispersing funds to friends)

4. Although voters may appear to be dumb as in the case of voting in Labour to NSW over and over they can eventually get it right. ie. Punishment administered by changing government.

The trick is to work out where the voters heads are at right now.

Not so easy.

Many voters have NO IDEA what the carbon tax means and many of those “feel” that it is good to “save the environment”.

There is still a lot of very scarey “carbonised reporting” out there in the media which pushes the agenda.

Judging where the voters are at here in AGW land is not as clear as the Republic issue.

Please do not equate the extremes of either viewpoint (Left/Right) having much influence over average people.

I live in Western Sydney, and work in a large company that would have almost universal Union membership. I’ve discussed AGW/CC conversationally with many, and most don’t believe it. Those that do, I’ve provided copies of the Sceptic handbook and Burt Rutan’s analysis and asked for them to make up their own mind. So far those who’ve actually read them have been given a lot to think about at least, and I’ve seen signs of change in opinion of some.

I agree with the traditional core Labour values, but would be a centrist in terms of political view, and actually talking to people, I find most are similar to me, even if our views spread across the main part of the Bell curve.

Most people though, because they are concerned with paying the mortgage, bills, their kid’s education etc, don’t have much time to spare a thought for CC issues. If it comes in and power/fuel prices rise dramatically, the revolt might begin.

Kinky, The main reason that politicians like Turnbull push the Republic issue is so they can get a chance to rewrite the constitution. The constitution is there to limit the power of the government over the people. It protects us from the overreach of government in other words. The constitution gets in the way of their ambitions and they are always looking for ways to circumvent it. The various contitutional “conventions” are actually wink wink nod nod agreements by both main political parties to ignore the terms of the constitution in various areas.

One example is the environment. The Commonwealth constitution does not give any powers to the Federal Government to make legislation with respect to the environment which is constitutionally a state issue. The activist judges, however, decided that the Federal Government can act on environmental issues, against the rights of the states, through the external powers areas. If the federal and state governments really wished to govern according to constitution they would have immediately legislated to invalidate this judgement.

Another area is education. Education is not listed in powers section of the constitution as an area that the Federal Government can legislate in. This being the case, why do we have a Commonwealth Education Minister with a department with 5000 people in it. Why are they there, what do they do, and why are they spending money that they have no constitutional right to spend.

Once again, let’s just make sure everyone understands that the Great Carbon Scam is not a partisan issue. Both sides are equally likely to enforce a carbon tax: the ALP of their Green moral high ground, the Libs because of their banking dollar.

So while we’re here laughing our collective arses off at the horrendous mess that Labour has made of the reasonably simple matter of choosing a leader, let’s not forget that behind every Abbott lurks a Turnbull. Libs are almost as likely to switch horses mid-race and the dark horse is very definitely pro carbon tax.

So while we’re here laughing our collective arses off at the horrendous mess that Labour has made of the reasonably simple matter of choosing a leader,

As a former Labor follower, I am not laughing. My forbears will all be tuning in their graves to see what was once a true workers party turn into this rabble.

Despite the fall of the Labour party I still don’t believe the coalition offer a genuine alternative to the blue collar working people of Australia. Just look at the draconion laws Fatty O’Barrol has just introduced on unions that have the temerity to strike.

Pitiful. You’re complaining about them having to obey the law with realistic penalties and a choice of which union to join. Pathetic. The laws on unions might be reasonable when they talk about banning these thuggish protection rackets run by gangsters. See Health Services Union. Even their whistle blower seems like an appalling person.

Thanks for the comment Mike; You judge all unions by the performance of a few. Yes there has been some bad ones in the past and some still exist. However if it were not for the unions those born to the lower classes would still be forced into child labour.

It wasn’t out of the kindness of the employers of the early industrial age that children no longer miss out on an education, children in the western world would still be working in sweat shops like they do in third world countries if it were not for unions.

Bob, I WISH my wages were pegged to 2.5% rise per annum. Working in the private sector we are exposed to competitive reality, market reality and economic reality. Since the 2008 GFC and subsequent decline in Retail spending and uncertain International outlook a very large portion of people in the Australian Private sector have had much than 2.5% rises every year. In any case, O’Farrell’s said you’d get more than 2.5% if you found productivity gains to pay for it. You should read up about Bob Hawke’s wages accord with the Unions. That was a policy set by a Labor government and ex ACTU leader which was very close to what Mr O’Farrell is proposing. Trouble is Mr O’Farrell isn’t Labor.

I don’t mind the thumbs down, but if you are going to dislike my post, give a reason. Is it that I challemge the NSW Gov, on workplace laws, or despite turning my back at the Labor party, I still don’t worship at the alter of the conservatives.

Thanks for the comment. Me 40+ years of union Fees, In that time I,ve been on two strikes, one I supported, one I didn’t. I do know during those years I have had regular pay increases, sometimes not as big as I would have liked but definitely bigger than I would have got If it were not for my union.

As I see it they are a necessity , not always good, in some cases obscenely bad but a lot of us would be a lot worse off without them

Good morning Cookster: I sympathise with you and every one else in the private sector at the moment, no spending confidence from the public, low job security, jobs going off shore, but these also effect the public sector if you are just a wage earner. I also well remember Hawkes prices/wages accord and the link between productivity and wage rises of the time, things have not changed in my work place since productivity increase is still a buzz word in wage negotiations but after 30+ years of productivity improvements where can they truly be found now in the case of police, ambulance drivers and nurses, we already have lost most if not all sububan police stations, ambulance service is overstretched and nurses are run off there feet, productivity increases in these professions please!!!!

As an extra point on the prices wages accord under Hawke, a team from the ACTU came through my work place and conducted an audit of all occupations, at the end of the audit all blue coller jobs were devalued, Those doing a job lost nothing at the time but any new starters were paid at a lower rate and if you transferred from your present job to another no matter your length of service you went on the lower rate, On a personal note After the original honeymoon for Hawke I developed a pretty small opinion of him and his government. See I dislike both parties equally.

Bob,
I’m self employed for the last 34 years. I used to be a member of the Commonwealth Professional Officers Association when I was in the BoM(forecaster). I’d be lying if I said it did me any good. Bunch of parasites. Complete waste of money.
In Australia, if you don’t like the pay and conditions of your present job, get another one more to your liking or start your own business.
Unions are a protection racket extorting money from both employees and employers.
When we started our business my wife and I decided NEVER to have employees. Everything we’ve seen since with friends who have employed people merely reinforces that we made the right decision.
I once had a friend who was a fireman. Who advised that if I had a fire in the house to get a garden hose and put it out. You’ve got plenty of time. He said if we called the Fire Brigade the first thing you’d get would be a fire axe through the front door even if it was unlocked and there would be heaps of water damage. He did say they would guarantee to save the block of land. As for the Police, remember when seconds count, they are only minutes away and will put up a nice ribbon saying “crime scene” around your body. Some years ago here in Toowoomba the Ambulance Service had a perfect zero at saving people with heart attacks. That service is another case of union thuggery increasing costs to the public.
I’m less impressed than you by “emergency services”.
Sure wish I had a guaranteed 2.5% pay rise each year and high pay to begin with.
I’m not complaining though because I like what I do and the current downturn due to the high Aussie dollar gives me a chance to catch up on some personal projects and do a little more R&D on future products.
Oh and BTW children aren’t working in factories any more not because of unions but because smart people made inventions and formed capital to make society rich enough that we can afford to have children not work. If they weren’t working in the “dark satanic mills” the kids would have been weeding the potato patch from dawn to dusk or staring at the south end of a north bound donkey all day, if they weren’t pulling the plow themselves, all just to get enough to eat. Ever wonder why all those Chinese moved from the countryside these last 15 years to work in factories? It is because it beats standing all day, knee deep in rice paddies fertilized by human excrement.
Your class warfare attitude is so 19th Century.

Bob, appreciate your sympathy! However, with respect, the productivity gains I speak of will not come from Nurses, Police, Ambulance drivers or teachers but from the back office staff, bureaucrats and inefficient work practises and management structures that are supposed to support them. The area health services are another good example, suffocating bureaucracy that soaks up hospital budgets with very little to show for it. It is this bureaucratic inefficiency that will only increase federally due to the Federal governments coming Carbon Tax and is also a good part of the reason for Europe’s current economic troubles. Former Labor State teasurer Michael Costa even said a large portion of state public servants are surplus to needs and he wasn’t talking about Nurses, Police, Ambulance drivers or teachers.

Mike Borgelt:
I have been out and missed your post earlier so apologize for the delay, I have visited your site in the past and do realise that you run your own business, and wish you every success.

You say I have a “class warfare attitude”, from your comments I could say you deride everybody, rely on nobody, in fact you are insular and self absorbed. Not knowing you that would be presumptuous of me, and you not knowing me your comment presumes that you know me from a few lines on a blog, this is wrong on both our parts and it might be better if we both withdraw for the sake of other visitors to this site.

The sort of problems that affect all small business, mine included, cause huge difficulties that are not experienced by Government employers.

One of my friends ran a small motor vehicle repair business with his wife as secretary and a young mechanic on the payroll.

Apart from changing govt regulations all went well.

Then another “Friend” told a hard luck story about his son who needed to find a job and would be ever so grateful if he could give him a go.

Like a fool he fell for it. Took on the young fellow and had nothing but trouble.

Workplace laws designed to protect the “innocent” were used to beat him over the head and he was advised it was cheaper to cough up the “penalty” rather than go to court and fight. Cost him $7,000 (1995 abt) to get rid of a dead weight.

He vowed never to employ anyone else.

Same and worse happened to another mate who is a builder in the Hunter Valley.

I know there are a lot of rich parasites, we talk about them here.

Problem is there are lot of “poor” parasites too who know that they really never have to work a day in their lives if they don’t want to.

The decline seemed to start with Whitlam forty years ago.

There are good and decent people at ALL levels of society and pretending that this is a rich vs poor thing is not on target.

Workplace laws designed to protect the “innocent” were used to beat him over the head and he was advised it was cheaper to cough up the “penalty” rather than go to court and fight. Cost him $7,000 (1995 abt) to get rid of a dead weight.

I may be blue collar, however I am also the first to admit workplace laws under Labor gave protection to deadweight in many cases. Reform was needed but if work choices was the answer then I’m the south end of that north bound donkey Mike mentioned earlier.

A case in point the Boeing engineers at Williamtown that were refused union representation under work choices.

The Boeing Dispute in Newcastle arose in February 2005, when Boeing management refused to negotiate the workers’ claim for a collective union agreement to replace non-union individual employment contracts.

In this case the workers were out for a total of 262 days, this surely was not good for boeing but it must have been devastating for the workers.

I don’t have the answer for fair work place laws but it surely must sit somewhere in the middle.

On a small matter close to me, a family member worked for a small buisness that suffered a temporary downturn, they were then moved from full time work to casual, the worker accepted this as they were just happy to be employed, trouble was the employers did not meet their obligation for casual employment, sales picked up within a month the employee was required again to work a forty hour week, they then worked the next nine months full time, not being payed on public holidays and no annual leave accumulation.

On making enquiries at the DLI and approaching management about the situation they were ostracised and denigrated by management and never given their leave entitlements for the disputed time, nor were they given make up wages for not being paid correct casual wages for this period of employment.

Who is wronged in any single event cannot be broadly brushed on every situation, I hope you will at least concede this point.

Twenty five F/A-18 Hornet workers and their families went on strike without pay from 1 June 2005, when they were “locked-out” after taking legal industrial action by refusing to fill in their time sheets.

KK, the Boeing guys are maintaining our F/A18s. The Air Force doesn’t do much in house maintenance any more, it is mostly contracted out.
You can see the extortion attempt here. A small group of workers want a union contract so they can hold our defence capability to ransom at any time. I know people who work for Boeing at Oakey maintaining and training people to fly our Army helicopters. They are already very well paid.
Likewise I know plenty of airline pilots who are still bent out of shape about the 1989 dispute which was engineered by the union(as the more honest among them admit)but in that case the union was hopelessly incompetent. The ones who went back to work got very well paid but they had to fly more too and restrictive hiring, work practices and seniority went away. In a stunning show of union
(non)solidarity the older pilots merely resigned if they were within a few years of retirement age, others had the experience levels to get hired by OS airlines and the young pilots who were First Officers without a lot of experience had a terrible time. Their union “mates” screwed their careers.
I’d be surprised if Bob Malloy ever made a dollar that wasn’t handed to him by an employer. He writes oh so reasonably but what he writes is bilge. As for your post at 7.1.6 Bob, with the insults – well screw you too.
If I was an employer and the employees wanted to join a union I’d shut up shop. I have no problem with an employees’ association *of that enterprise* to communicate with management to improve the processes, profitability and improve the way work is done(work smarter not harder)although enlightened management should be communicating with the people carrying out the tasks anyway. The problem is with outside third parties. As I said before, which Bob has no answer to, if you don’t like the pay and conditions find another job or start your own business. There’s nobody stopping you.
BTW Australia has several aircraft manufacturers. Gippsland Air and Jabiru are two. The latter makes engines too(over 6000 engines and 1500 aircraft at last count). Also several avionics manufacturers. MicroAir and Xcom make aircraft radios. Even two electronic glider instrument manufacturers, me and another company. Given there are only around half a dozen of the latter in the world this puts Australia well represented in the field.

I thank you for your posts, It seems on balance we agree on far more than we disagree on.

If I had not filled out a timesheet I wouldn’t have been paid either.

On this I would normally agree, however I once had my time sheet vanish into the either, actually it sat on my supervisors desk and didn’t make it to time keeping in time to be processed. I recieved a flat pay for that week missing out on overtime worked.

The pay sheet made its way to time keeping the following week at which time I recieved those extras not payed the previous week.

He’s the perfect conservative in their eyes – the one that can best represent the wunch of bankers who will benefit from an ETS.

Every Catastrafarian I have found myself working for thinks that Turnbull is the best politician in parliament. To me that just proves my points above.

Personally, I think he’s in the wrong party. He is not conservative by any stretch of the imagination – just a self serving politician driven by ideology with no concept of critical thought or reasoning, He would probably be as happy as a pig in Mud in the ALP.

I don’t trust that man as far as I could throw him. All it would take is for his puppet masters to give him some instructions and he would be a real threat to any team.

Know what you’re saying Juliar but I truly believe that she only publicly espoused those gay marriage views so as not to completely alienate the “catholic” ALP vote.

I haven’t noticed any hardening of attitude towards the illegal immigrants. She’s quite happy blaming Abbott for them and she’s quite happy for thousands more to drop in as she knows that they will most likely vote for the ALP.

There are some politicians who are firmly of the right – they want to conserve the best of the past. There are some politicians who are likewise firmly of the left – they wish to progressively homogenise society. And there are those politicians who are firmly at the bottom – they are just in politics for personal gain and self aggrandisement. It is this latter group who constitute 98% of all politicians.

Meh, even though it may seem that 98% of politicians are in it for personal gain I do believe that less than 98% aren’t just in it for gain and actually want to make a difference. It is just how they do it that pisses people off.

And you believe a word of what Gillard says? Shame on you for being fooled twice.

Of course she believes in gay marriage and asylum seekers having an open door. She’s a hardcore socialist. She just knows that mainstream Australia doesn’t believe in these things, so pretends to be mainstream.

Hence ‘real julia’ vs ‘fake julia’ vs ‘every other side of Julia’

The reason she can’t be consistent in her views is that her views are distasteful. So she pretends to be something she isn’t. And people see her as inconsistent.

The other aspect of this that throws me is the [self-snip] definition of Green Politics.

“Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy.” Looks like a Bouillabaisse of ideas designed to attract all yet a hodge podge of flavors and meaning.

Are Australian Greens actual disenfranchised citizens who are not conservatives nor socialists? Did the Australian party system create the need for an Independent Party Greens likely represent? Nothing wrong with grassroots democracy in my opinion but the rest is subject to interpretation ; )

“The term is used as a pejorative by political conservatives, centrists, and leftists to discredit deep ecology…”

I tend to agree yet note the mix of political attitudes that circle the ecology issue. Are they simply the byproduct of environmentalist propaganda and, if so, why not eliminate the Party by simply redressing the foolishness from other Australian Party statements?

If the Australian Greens are nothing more than poorly educated saps who bought the propaganda, why aren’t ALL other Party Politics focused on educating them?

I can’t speak for wherever you live but here in Oz we have a leading Green, one Lee Rhiannon (nee Brown) who came from a well known family of hard-core communists. One look at the Green party’s manifesto would convince most clear thinking people of their communist leanings. Full of touch-feely claptrap which could only be implemented by a huge growth in state control over everyday life.

You might like to look up some of the public statements of Vaclav Klaus (President of the Czech Republic). He knows better than most what the Greens real agenda is because he lived under it and endured their repression of “incorrect” thinking.

Americans are used to looking at politics in terms of Democrat or Republican, because they were the classic (ie Greek and Roman) peoples assemblies, and the founding fathers saw either of those two choices as being better than a monarchy. But this was before organised socialism had been conceived.

One way of looking at politics in Australia and New Zealand is to consider the differences between the Commerce, Science & Engineering, and Arts faculties in Universities. Commerce is primarily about Law, Accounting, and Trade. These are commonly associated with conservative or republican viewpoints. Science and Engineering is primarily about research, production, and manufacturing. Commonly associated with socialist viewpoints. Finally, Arts is primarily about Religion, Literature, Fine Arts, History, and Political “science” (which is not a science at all). These, I tend to align with the democratic viewpoint.

My hypothesis is, that the Greens, as a political movement, tends to sit across the socialist and democratic viewpoints. Climate Science is Physics. Its interpretation however is partly religion, and partly political “science”. Most of the followers – the rank and file foot soldiers – of the green movement tend not to be critical thinkers, and have Arts degrees (if they have a degree at all), so they tend to accept the dogma and propaganda at face value.

This is why the sceptics find it so hard to persuade the Greens that climate change is not a catastrophic issue. The science is basically right, and it appeals to a basic need for a religious context. It also lends power to the political “science” aspect of the whole debate.

Having managed to annoy a fair percentage of all of the Arts majors who come here, I will now shut up.

And like you, I find it hard to understand why a country would voluntarily tax itself on something that the rest of the world is moving away from as fast as they can go.

I can only put it down to individual politicians wanting to ingratiate themselves with the UN movers and shakers in order to get a job that used their political skills, but was not at the whim of an electorate.

Wayne Swan will be getting worried going into the next election with Gillard considering it ain’t likely she will improve in the polling and Swan only holds his seat with a 3% margin. Some of Labor’s big hitters could be kicked out of Parliament at the next election.

Does anybody else think it is paradoxical that Doug Cameron & Martin Ferguson, two of the most strident former union heavies, are in the vanguard of the Rudd camp?

Given the snowballing rate of (manufacturing)job losses & the likelihood that more will be at risk in a greater or lesser part to the coming g burden of the carbon tax, you would think the political support base these two stand on would be very shaky!

The more damaging this 2 ring circus is becoming between Rudd and Gillard, with accusations and damaging personal attacks going to and fro, the more I’m leaning to those Labor MPs wishing to rescue themselves and their party from oblivion to switch allegiances and back a third unexpected candidate- at $7.50 with Centrebet, I want a piece of that action! I hereby predict that neither Rudd nor Gillard will contest the next election, whether decided on Monday or shortly thereafter- it is not a matter of if, but when, IMO. A plague on both their houses, and when the only chance of victory is option C, the MPs will take it, no matter who it is. Now is you chance fellas to do a Jim Hacker.

Sorry Jo if I’m a bit off topic with this but it was an eye-opener last week as I stumbled over it on Climate Etc.

Search on Climate Etc. for the term “Lord” and you will find the “Nullius in Verba” post. Search the post for “I encountered Lord May at the Royal Society Uncertainty Workshop, and I liked his presentation Science as Organized Skepticism and you will find the audio track to “Science as Organized Skepticism”.

I highly recommend his chat in the context of the definition of Skeptic and the “moral high ground” underlying the “Politics”.

I am appalled at the thought of Rudd coming back. He was fantastic in the 2007 election – absolutely brilliant. But he was lousy as PM. Yes, he did one or two good things, but he clearly was not getting anywhere near the best out of his ministry. Gillard has done much better as PM. And yes, much as it pains me to admit it, I think Abbott would manage a ministry well. I just hope he never gets the chance.

Great post Jo!. Surveys do not cover the degree of animosity towards a carbon dioxide tax.
Why?
Because of bad survey sampling, I have watched people answer phones to pollsters and have listened to the @#$%^& response.

Total resentment towards the lie.

The people who answer the survey have the time and the inclination to respond.

Why does it get pushed so hard by our politicians?
Because they believe the image of reality that Canberra journalists and pollsters provide.

Bryan: Yeah, but her performance is woeful. And the economy is shocking.

John: Looked at that. The traction control is buggered – she’s stuck in “spin” mode.

Bryan: All the adverts said she was “moving forward” but she does nothing except U-turns and circlework. Unless you count evading questions and dodging the truth.

John: That’s because the left is just spinning, and there’s no power to the right.

Bryan: The Gillard was never good at factional power control.

John: Anyway, I finished up taking her for a run round the block. She’s running rough, the ride is bumpy and her policy handling is all over the shop. All she does is just lurch from one crisis to another.

Bryan: Do you think it was the Independent’s suspension?

John: Could be. They’re all shockers – gas filled of course.

Bryan: I thought one of them was a little Wilkie.

John: Worse than that, mate, they’re all completely Oakshott. And the economy?

Bryan: She’s been burning a lot of cash for a while. Always needing a top-up.

John: You’ve got to remember, Bryan, that the Gillard is a power-hungry beast. The economy’s got to suffer…

Bryan: Isn’t there anything you can do?

John: Well, we Greeced the deficit, primed the pump and ratcheted up the spending but the economy is flat.

Bryan: Did you try a little inflation?

John: This brand is bad for that – remember the Whitlam?

Bryan: Yeah, just like the Keating. Crashed everything. Did you fix the air conditioner?

John: What about it?

Bryan: Use the air con and it just sucks the power out of the economy.

There was nothing wrong with the Edsel as a car, it was just a marketing and timing disaster, rather like Rudd’s crack at stealing back the top job. A better analogy would be the P76. So much promise in the beginning, but all fell apart within two years (car AND company).

While you may think this is moving away from the Turnbull topic, keep in mind his earlier acceptance of a form of ETS.

All this is if Rudd wins the leadership vote on Monday, and that’s a pretty huge IF.

Rudd has said, somewhat cryptically, that he wants to review the current CO2 Tax, and to bring forward the move to the ETS, possibly as early as within 6 months.

Now, I have a question about that.

This is not Legislation that is still before the Parliament, so it’s not just a matter of adding an amendment.

Consider how difficult it would be to, in his words, review it after 6 months with a view to introducing the ETS at that time.

This is 18 separate pieces of now passed legislation, covering a number of areas.

Consider how the bribes (so called) compensation package is tied into it. All that money will have to come from somewhere else.

He can just offer an off the cuff comment like this, but actually doing something about it would be impossible.

It’s not a matter of amending it, because it would need all new legislation for all 18 Bills to either amend, or replace them.

Remember how difficult it was to get them passed, and you can bet the Greens would not want any of that changed, so he’s hamstrung in the Senate. Maybe Turnbull might have more to say if that eventuates, and gee, hasn’t Turnbull been quiet in all of this.

Rudd is, as usual, all talk.

I still think he knows something, about himself, that he’s not letting on to anybody about.

I still have this nagging thought that he’s off to the UN. He must have known all along that he could never muster the required votes. I suspect he’s been offered a position, and he’s said in reply to give him one last shot at getting his old job back, he’ll give it everything, and if when it fails, then he’ll take up that position at the UN, and work better towards his goal.

No matter what Labor thinks, and what Catamon says here, that he will suck it up and go back to the back benches, not wanting to destroy his legacy by being referred to as a Labor rat, and I don’t think that would really worry Rudd, because as shown earlier, Julia, and Labor have already airbrushed him from the Labor ranks of PM’s. With Rudd, it’s just a case of this is all about me.

Tony from Oz has figured it all out. Rudd the dud is going to enjoy the limelight and the payback and doesn’t really care either way as he definitely has a top seat warm at the UN.
Australia more than any other country supported the UNIPCC and the CC-AGW hoax. They blackmailed the UN committee re Kyoto Protocols to get the special “Australia Clause” inserted. This eleventh hour bit of snake oil allowed for all our native vegetation audited to that point to be used as an offset to the generalincrease in emmissions due to population and industry expansion.
This then let the faceless public servants and politicians from all sides to secretly plot ways by means of “LAND USE CHANGE” of increasing the vegetation accounting. This was achieved by getting the States to sterilise peoples assets, earning capacity and property rights generally. Bob Carr and Peter Beattie introduced drastic -Native Vegetation rules and it was all done without “Just Terms” Compensation.

Great line from Tony Abbott. ‘Kevin Rudd confirmed everything I’ve been saying about Julia, and she’s confirmed what I’ve said about Kevin.’ >>> Oh how true!

I am crossing my fingers that Tony does expose the AGW lie but fear he may have his hands tied with the likes of Turnbull and Pyne. btw, I think Rudd may very well call an election quite soon if he gets up on Monday. The left are turning to Rudd with Cameron and now Albanese. Rudd has the momentum.

If ALL the currently 23 undecideds break for Rudd (LOL!) he’d still lose.

The latest polls are still essentially flat-lined. The Fed voting intention polls aren’t really going to be worth much for the next few weeks due to the kind of volatility that happens around big media hyped event like this, and any washout from the QLD election.

Seems that all will just have to settle down while the Govt, well, keeps getting on with what they were elected to do.

Just following some of the more credible blogs and keeping an eye on the news.

Will be interesting to see how the meme’s change once Mondays ALP leadership vote is done. I suspect that the hyena’s in the press pack will start sniffing around the Lib/Nats for their leadership woe fix pretty soon as ALP policy delivery seems to boring for them.

In fact, i’d think that the “skeptic” underbelly of the political debate will be watching for that with keen interest as from what i’ve been reading here not a lot of them have any faith in Abbott to support their position on Carbon Price. Hey, maybe you guys should start a move to have Cory Bernardi show the strength of his convictions, chuck his Senate seat and move to the HoR?? Then the Libs could make him LOTO and politics would be skeptic heaven for a while?

Seriously for a moment though, who would you like to see as leader of the Libs going into the next election??

Well I for one recall the leftards reaction when Abbott won the coalition leadership and I”m sure others do as well. I suppose you could make a presentable dish out of crow so let the leftards theorise away about the coalition leadership. They must like the taste.

It doesn’t matter who wins on Monday. If it’s Joolya, the status quo stays. If Kev triumphs, there will be a resurgence in the ALP’s fortunes but it won’t be long before people remember why they couldn’t stand him the first time round.

If Labor MPs have any guts, they’ll vote for Julia, and enjoy governing for one more year. After that, many of them may be out of a job, but surely that is better than selling out because Rudd appeals to the electorate.

Rationalizing is an interesting thing that people do when reality does not match up with their belief systems.
So the usual explanation from certain quarters goes like -
“but he/she was well intentioned.” (completely screwed it)
“it was for the greater good.” (shame about the bad for everyone)
“it was lack of party support.” (nobody would jump off a cliff with them).
“the bad press caused all the trouble.” (the media reported one of the many screwups)
“they are in the pay of big oil.” (I cannot accept the facts from that person)

I note that the cat and mouse both rationalize rather than present an argument backed by facts and reality.

One thing Abbott and Rudd seem to be in furious agreement on is if Gillard were left alone, even for a solitary Newspoll cycle, she would improve her standing, and they’d be yesterday’s men. – GEORGE MEGALOGENIS From: The Australian February 11, 2012 12:00AM

Cat. The only way Gillard could improve her standing with the majority of Australians thoroughly sick of her outright lies and obfuscating spin, is by saying “I’m standing down”! Most of her many failures have been of her own making and have resulted from her overwhelming desire to gain and hold power by any means available, no matter how much harm she creates for the country. She has been given a dream run by a sycophantic rabidly left-wing Canberra Press gallery and the usual ABC and Fairfax Labor luvvies. How much more do you want her to be “left alone” to continue to wreak havoc?